Ministers ‘to be denied early look at economic data’

MINISTERS must stop getting early access to economic statistics, a Holyrood committee has said.

The economy committee has moved to limit ministers’ early access to data by publishing a Bill which would change the rules.

It follows long-running concerns about ministers refusing to give up their ‘privileged’ access to key fiscal information before it is published – despite the practice being abolished in other parts of the UK.

The Government at Westminster scrapped long-standing ‘pre-release’ access to data for its ministers, special advisers and civil servants after its chief statistician said that it could cause ‘damage to trust in official statistics’.

The economy committee’s Bill would limit early access to GDP and Retail Sales Index data, while the ‘pre-release’ period for other statistics would be reduced from five working days to one.

Convener Gordon Lindhurst said: ‘The great majority of statistics experts who gave evidence to the committee were agreed that the practice of pre-release access for government ministers, now ended elsewhere in the UK by the ONS [Office for National Statistics] and Bank of England, should not continue in Scotland.’

A Scottish Government spokesman said: ‘Pre-release access is a matter for the chief statistician and the independence of his role is crucial. The Scottish Government follows the code of practice for statistics.’